After reorganization, the Chinese navy and navy unified the classification names of ships; large cannon ships such as Feizhao became "main battleships", three-masted gunboats were called "gunboats", and light battleships with two masts or less were called "
Clipper", the entire fleet now has ten "main battleships", and the entire army is divided into three squadrons; the first fleet has the flying wolf, flying leopard and other warships to patrol the Yellow Sea and Ryukyu waters in the north of Taiwan Island, where the base is
Ba Gang, also known as the Northern Fleet: The Second Fleet is the main fleet stationed in Jingang, Taiwan. It has five main warships and Taipei Chicken Coop as an auxiliary base. It is the most powerful and faces the entire southeastern coast of China: the Third Fleet
Also known as the Nanyang Fleet, it has the most clippers and the largest sea area it is responsible for. Its main base is Manila Port on Luzon Island, and Nanya State in West Borneo is an auxiliary base.
In order to respond to Yin Feng, after discussions with the company's security department and other departments, the leaders of the Chinese Army, Zeng Jingshan, who served as interim general manager, ordered the mobilization of the Second Fleet, which was announced to the outside world as an exercise.
At this time, Yin Feng, who was unaware of the danger he was facing, was chatting with missionary You Wenhui and others in the cockpit of the Xinxing.
Zeng Qi was also sitting on the side, smiling lightly, listening to the Chinese Jesuit monk's narrative.
Lin Xiao would be surprised if he saw Mr. Zeng here; the envoy he sent to Quanzhou to inform Zeng Qi arrived in Penghu. Mr. Zeng was secretly boarded by the Kinmen Inspection Department on the Xinxing. Quanzhou Government Office
Most of the government officials are from Yin Feng's Zhonghua Company, and most of the soldiers at the Quanzhou Guard Station have been bribed by Yin Feng's Zhonghua Company. The inspections and flood soldiers of the Kinmen Inspection Department are all sent by Yin Feng, so Mr. Zeng secretly left Quanzhou to go to the city.
No one knew anything about the Xinxin account.
Yin Feng was going to Hangzhou to attend the shareholders' meeting in person. This was an open purpose. In fact, Yin Feng was going to Hangzhou to meet with important figures in the imperial court. This was the result of Zeng Qi's many years of hard work in building connections.
The estranged relationship between Zhonghua Company and the Ming Dynasty in the coastal area has always been a stubborn problem in Zeng Qi's heart. After Zeng Qian's death, he devoted himself to Yin Feng's career and was also working hard for his family's destiny. He did not want Yin Feng and
The imperial court eventually went to the point of confrontation, but it also knew that although Yin Feng was a bit impulsive and immature in officialdom politics, he was a person with his own opinions. It was impossible to change his own approach, nor to give up or change the current situation of Zhonghua Company.
Well run track.
The governor of Fujian has changed again. The predecessor Chen Zizhen offended the tax superintendent Gao Cai and was transferred to Yunnan. The current governor Ding Jisi is a master who doesn't want to get into trouble. Moreover, the previous two governors Chen Xingxue and Chen Zizhen left a lot of mess to keep him busy.
Now, there is basically no time to plot against the China United Company on the island of Taiwan. Gao Cai, the tax eunuch, plotted against Yin Feng several times without success. Now that the anti-tax supervisory sentiment is spreading throughout Fujian, he has also restrained his behavior a lot.
Therefore, in the past few years, the Chinese company and the Fujian government have basically been in a state of peace with each other. Taiwan Port has increased the annual tax payment to the Fujian government to 120,000 taels, which has exceeded the overseas trade tax payment of Chenghai County Yuegang.
At the same time, Yin Feng also sponsored the government to open schools, helped poor scholars to take the imperial examinations, or hired poor scholars who had passed the imperial examinations to work in Taiwan. Therefore, the entire Fujian official and gentry class had few voices against the Chinese company.
Zeng Qi felt that he should take this opportunity to establish relationships with senior court officials in the capital and consolidate Yin Feng's current position.
In the past, whether recruiting troops or fighting, Yin Feng always faced government representatives from Fujian, and had never had direct contact with the imperial court in the capital.
Li Tingji, who is currently serving as the Crown Prince's Taibao Minister of Rites and a bachelor of Shudongge in the cabinet, is from Jinjiang, Fujian Province; Ye Xianggao, the chief minister of the cabinet, is a Jinshi of Fuqing, Fujian Province. After reviewing the right minister of the Ministry of Rites, Shen Yiguan was dismissed, in the 35th year of Wanli (1607) In May, Ye Xianggao was promoted to the Minister of Rites and a bachelor of Dongge University, and became the prime minister. The next year, the first minister Zhu Geng died of illness, and he was promoted to the chief minister. Some people called him the "independent prime minister".
At that time, Shenzong had stopped paying attention to the court for a long time, and his cabinet minister Li Tingji was attacked by public opinion and stayed at home. Ye Xianggao was actually the only one left in the cabinet. He petitioned more than a hundred times to request more cabinet ministers and supplementary services. There were other vacant official positions and the suspension of mineral taxes, but the emperor showed no reaction. When the government was becoming increasingly chaotic and partisan disputes were intensifying, Ye himself was a bureaucrat who still retained the conscience of a scholar. Although he was a veteran of the Donglin Party, he had been an official for many years. , did not act impulsively, and strived to be prudent and at peace with the Zhejiang Party. Therefore, he also mediated disputes between various factions in the court several times. However, due to the deep resentment between the parties, the mediation was difficult to achieve results.
However, there have been successive floods in southern Zhili and Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Huguang provinces. Large areas of farmland have been submerged to this day and millions of people have been displaced. Ye Xianggao said in his memorial that "this is the only disaster that has been seen in more than 200 years." Floods and typhoons occurred continuously in 2016, and refugees were everywhere. Many of them went to Taiwan and Luzon Island to escape famine and make a living. Ye Xianggao had some feelings for his hometown in Fujian. He saw the Fujian victims working in Yin Feng and Zhonghua Company (under the name of Huaxing Co., Ltd.). Qian was rescued by the government, and he has a good impression of Zhonghua Company.
Ye Xianggao's cousin Lin Shangjiong (also known as Bingqing) is a wealthy businessman from Fujian. He has been doing business in Beijing for more than ten years and is one of the leaders of the Fujian Guild Hall in the capital. Ye Xianggao's cousin Xue Mingqi and uncle Xue Rugang are both famous in Fuzhou City. The wealthy businessman had close trade relations with the China Company. Xue Mingqi also bought ten shares of the China Company and invested 5,000 taels of silver to become a shareholder; He made a lot of money from Nanyang trade. Through the connections of these people, Zeng Qi finally got involved with Ye Xianggao, the chief minister of the Ming Dynasty cabinet.
"Ye Lao's nephew Ye Chenggao has bought shares in our company and is considered a shareholder. He will also come to Hangzhou when he goes to Hangzhou. Then he will come with Ye Ge Lao's letter. If our Zhonghua Company can set up a headquarters in Quanzhou, This means that the imperial court has officially recognized our sphere of influence." Zeng Qi is over sixty years old, and he is still running around the sea at his age. Yin Feng couldn't bear it, lowered his head in deep thought, and listened to his words.
"...As long as the imperial court acquiesces that our company can conduct regiment training in Taiwan, then our army will be justified..."
Listening to Zeng Qi's nagging, Yin Feng always felt a little unreliable. He tried his best to build a good relationship with the court. It took more than a day or two to do so, but he never got any definite commitment or law from the government. His recognition was a stab in the back, and he had many stumbling blocks. After he was recruited, he held the title of Qianhu on his head for several years. He defeated Japanese pirates and helped the court wipe out many pirates along the coasts of Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong, but what? I didn't get any credit for my achievements, and I never got promoted to an official position.
Of course, it doesn't matter whether the official position is promoted to Yin Feng or not, but the subtle attitude of the imperial government towards the status of the Zhonghua Company is a very critical issue. Every year, the Zhonghua Company's business office in Beijing and the internal line within the Fujian government regularly send copies of the official document to Taiwan. , provided to Yin Feng and other company executives to understand the dynamics of the imperial court. From some memorials copied from the residence, he also heard about Ye Xianggao: he was a fairly honest official, had a good impression of businessmen, and even built monuments and biographies for businessmen. This It is extremely rare among high-ranking officials of his time. More importantly, Ye believes that there is not much difference between doing business and being an official. The purpose is to obtain profits, but the means of making profits are different. , This is a rare outspoken statement among high-ranking officials in the late Ming Dynasty. His hometown is in Fujian, and as a member of the coastal area, he understands that the coastal residents "have poor food" and "use the sea as their land". Therefore, he has a tolerant side towards businessmen. However, as the chief assistant, Ye Xianggao had to support the imperial court's maritime ban policy, advocating a strict ban on trade with Japan and cracking down on smuggling maritime traders.
Therefore, Yin Feng believed that it was impossible for Ye Xianggao to violate the ancestral system and fully open the sea ban, nor to violate his Confucian cultural background and make a major adjustment to the economic structure of the Ming Dynasty; therefore, Ye Xianggao could not comprehensively open the sea ban. It was necessary to reform the political system of the late Ming Dynasty, and by the end of Wanli, the Ming Dynasty was already like a patient suffering from a serious illness, and it was difficult to recover. Unless drastic and thorough reforms were carried out, there was no hope; however, such reforms would inevitably affect various interest groups. , it is unknown whether the sick and weak body of the late Ming Dynasty can withstand such strong medicine - therefore, the situation in the Ming Dynasty is that if you don't reform, you will die, and if you reform, you may die.
Since Yin Feng had a head-to-head confrontation with Chen Xingxue and Gao Cai a few years ago, he has completely lost confidence in the Ming Dynasty government.
Zeng Qi didn't leave until very late. He had been teaching Yin Feng how to deal with scholars and officials, and taught him the so-called "three points for doing things and seven points for being a person".
This may be a characteristic of traditional Chinese culture; everyone has to spend a lot of energy to "be a human being", but there is less time to actually do practical things. Westerners who are down-to-earth and work wholeheartedly are conquering the world, while the top brass of the Ming Dynasty are still in the interpersonal relationship. If you are entangled in the network of relationships and work hard to be a good person, if this continues, China's backwardness will be inevitable.
Yin Feng had no choice but to patiently listen to Zeng Qi's teachings and respectfully sent the old man back to his cabin, then rubbed his head and returned to his cabin.
Li Lihua smiled and handed over the hot towel and said, "Wipe your face. I see you have a headache."
"It's not me, the father-in-law, who is causing the trouble. I think direct contact with Mr. Ye Ge is completely useless. If he hadn't tried his best to ask me to meet Ye Chenggao, I wouldn't have wasted this time."
Li Lihua didn't say anything, she sat quietly by the bed and looked at Yin Feng with her chin in her hands.
Yin Feng opened a Western book with a blue background on the table, looked at it, and said to Li Lihua: "I am really beyond my ability to translate this book "On the Movement of Celestial Bodies". You have studied Latin, so you should translate it." ,"
The book in front of me is the second edition of "On the Movement of Celestial Bodies", which is known to everyone in later generations as Copernicus' scientific masterpiece. This book was just imported from Europe by the Jesuit missionary Jin Nige according to the agreement reached with Yin Feng. What I brought back was a blue cloth envelope with a calfskin cover. On the title page was the Latin name of the missionary Luo Yagu who came to China on the same ship as Jinnige.
Since Gutenberg invented movable type printing in 1453, Europe has had a tradition that is closer to the style of ancient manuscripts for about 200 years. The printing house only provides the pages that are the core of the book. Everyone who buys this book, They had to find someone else to bind or bind the books. This kind of binding could be done completely according to the buyer's personal likes and dislikes. Therefore, at that time, each volume of the same edition of books could have its own characteristics, and each volume was different. Similarly (some people also like to bind more than one kind of books in the same volume), the practice of binding each volume printed in the same edition in the same volume, which was customary in later generations, did not become popular until the 17th century, so "On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres" "The first edition (Nuremberg, 1543) and the second edition (Basel, 1566) are treasures in the ancient book collection world in later generations.
Yin Feng specifically asked for this book from the Jinni Pavilion just because he was interested in the famous "On the Revolution of Celestial Bodies". Unfortunately, when it comes to Copernicus's "DeRevolutionibus", almost no one I don’t know, but I’m afraid there are very few people who have actually read this book, even if they just browsed it without asking for a deeper understanding, or just flipped through it. Even in the European scientific community at that time, only a few people could understand it. , so this book later won the title, "The book no one has read".
For a poor liberal arts college student like Yin Feng, the words written by Copernicus were completely at the top of the Tower of Babel. Yin Feng was almost completely incomprehensible. Li Lihua studied Latin systematically with the missionaries. She has some knowledge of literature and mathematics, and she can occasionally understand one or two words.
Li Lihua spread her hands: "I can't understand what this book is talking about. Forget it, aren't you going to Hangzhou to find Father Guo Jujing? He should be able to help you."
Yin Feng threw aside the second edition of "On the Movement of Celestial Bodies" which would be worth tens of millions of dollars in later generations, and said with a smile: "You are right, translating these books takes too much brains, so let's do something that doesn't take a lot of brains. "Okay," he rushed towards Li Lihua with his teeth bared and his claws bared...
Ten days later, in the early morning, the Xinxing and the escorting five three-masted warships suddenly encountered naval vessels from the Changguo Water Village in Zhejiang on the sea west of the Zhoushan Islands.
There are about a dozen naval vessels, all of which are single-masted, flat-bottomed offshore clippers. In the past, they rarely patrolled the waters off Zhoushan.
Lin Haisheng, the captain of the Xinxing, was in his thirties and a native of Quanzhou Prefecture, Fujian. He was a sailor of the Fuxing recruited by Yin Feng when he went to Manila to rescue people. He was the first direct descendant to follow Yin Feng.
He came to Yin Feng's cabin and called out in a low voice: "Sir, shipowner, there are navy officers and soldiers blocking the way, saying they want to board the ship for inspection."
Lin Haisheng thought to himself: Captain Yin seems to have become a little lazy recently, and the habit of practicing with the sailors every morning seems to have disappeared.
Yin Feng opened the door and came out while putting on his clothes. He said a little uncomfortably: "...What's going on? Did you show them the flag of the Fujian Navy?"
"They said they were acting on the orders of Zhejiang Commander-in-Chief Shen Yourong and ignored us at all,"
"Weird, go and invite the shopkeeper Xu and Mr. Zeng. Let the fleet stop first, make a defensive posture, and prepare for battle."